‘No change in Phl’s defense posture in disputed seas’

MANILA, Philippines - There is no adjustment in the country’s defense posture despite China’s deployment of surface-to-air missiles on a disputed island in the South China Sea, a ranking military official said yesterday.

But Vice Admiral Alexander Lopez, commander of the Western Command based in Palawan, stressed the military has not let down its guard and is in fact preparing for a worst-case scenario.

“That’s how we plan, we plan for the worst. That’s how the military plans, so we take into consideration the worst-case scenario, so the planning is based on that,” Lopez said in an interview on the sidelines of the alumni homecoming of the Philippine Military Academy (PMA) at Fort Gregorio del Pilar in Baguio City.

He said there is no change in the defense posture “because everything has been laid down already – how we are going to be vigilant, how we are going to be updated, that’s all actual.”

He said the troops are conditioned for a worst-case scenario.

Satellite images showed China’s missile deployment on Woody Island in the Paracels, which are also being claimed by Vietnam.

The Philippine military confirmed the deployment through actual video and photos.

The United States, the European Union and Australia have condemned Beijing’s action. The Association of Southeast Asian Nations has also called on China to stop militarizing the South China Sea.

For vice presidential candidate Sen. Gregorio Honasan, a joint exploration with China of the potentially oil and mineral rich West Philippine Sea should be considered by the Philippines to ease tension in the region.

He said the Philippine government should ask China to explore and find out what resources are there in the disputed areas and craft a sharing agreement with the Asian giant.

“I do not think China wants to go to war,” he said, as he cited ASEAN’s taking a stand against China’s bullying in the region.

“We should do a performance audit on all our bilateral international agreements and see if our economic and security partners come to our rescue with such agreements with them,” Honasan said. “Once we find out that they cannot help at all, why go on with such agreements?”

He said “our audience should be the world, not China,” adding an “unclear foreign policy” may have contributed to the problem.

But such an unclear foreign policy, he explained, is not the fault of a single administration, but all previous administrations that have not crafted a clear economic and security policy.  

In the meantime, Honasan said “we should relish the benefits” from existing agreements like the Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement (EDCA). 

“Let’s bear with EDCA at the moment, and let’s build up our strength,” he said. – With Artemio Dumlao